Increased Visibility and Control for On-Premises Deployments
Cloudpaging Server and Enterprise Portal 9.8.0 is here! Over the past few months, our team has been hard at work to provide greater flexibility and control over application deployments than ever before with Cloudpager Server and Enterprise Portal.
This blog outlines the new capabilities available with Cloudpager Server and Enterprise Portal 9.8.0, including the much anticipated Device Constraints, which enable administrators to restrict application deployments to specific employee devices.
Note: Cloudpaging Server and Enterprise Portal 9.8.0 are compatible with Cloudpaging Player versions 9.3.0 and newer, with support for appset versions.
What is new in Cloudpaging Server and Enterprise Portal 9.8.0?
Support for Device Constraints within Enterprise Portal
Device targeting is one of the most popular feature requests. While Cloudpaging Server already supports device targeting, the release of Enterprise Portal 9.8.0 expands device-specific controls for applications that are auto-deployed to end users.
The new Device Constraints feature within Enterprise Portal 9.8.0 allows administrators to establish granular controls over specific applications based on the device they are provisioned to. These device constraints can be used in tandem with existing User and Group assignments, maximizing the flexibility and control over auto-deployed applications.
For example, you can enable 7-Zip to be run offline by creating a license policy via Cloudpaging Server. If you want to restrict offline application usage to an employee’s physical desktop (or a set of devices), you will go into Manage Device Constraints, select the employee’s device, and apply the constraint to the policy. Once that constraint is applied, the employee will only be able to run 7-Zip offline using their physical device.
Device constraints will take precedence over normal subscriptions. In other words, if you have application subscription policies assigned at the User level with a Device Constraint that limits application deployments to the employee’s physical laptop, the application will only be provisioned to the user when they are using that specific device.
Now, you may be wondering what happens when multiple license policies are applied to the same application or appset.
This is how it will work:
- If only a single license policy applies due to a device constraint set, that policy will be deployed.
- If all license policies are configured with device constraints, the license policy name on top of the alphanumeric list will be deployed.
- If none of the license policies have a device constraint, the license policy name on the top of the alphanumeric list will be deployed.
The Device Constraint enhancement applies to Device principal types, including Active Directory Groups that contain AD computer objects (devices) as members. Nested groups with devices are also supported.
This enhancement will not apply to employees logged into the Enterprise Portal storefront.
Improved Application Publishing
Application publishing is more seamless than ever, even amid operating system maintenance efforts. Previously, if an administrator restarted Cloudpaging Server (e.g., for desktop maintenance and/or updates), all existing applications had to be validated before new applications could be published.
Now, new applications can be published while the validation process is running in the background. This is particularly useful when it comes to server and/or operating system maintenance. Often, organizations reboot Cloudpaging Server during these maintenance cycles. If you have 2,000 applications on the Server, you will no longer have to wait for them to be validated before adding new applications – significantly reducing maintenance-related downtime.
Enhanced Logging to Assist with Troubleshooting
We have made several updates to simplify and accelerate troubleshooting for administrators. The revamped system includes the following updates:
- Added DNS or IP addresses to errors
- Improved log for missing session information
- Prevented log forging
- Better Server error reporting when applications set to auto deploy are not published to a paging server
Error Logs Sample
Below is an image juxtaposing the Error Logs from older Cloudpaging Server versions and the latest 9.8.0 Server version. As you can see, the logs include more information so administrators can rapidly identify and remediate issues.
Enterprise Portal Logs Sample
Below is an image juxtaposing the Enterprise Portal Logs from older versions and the latest 9.8.0 Enterprise Portal version. The example demonstrates the differences in logs for a scenario in which an automatic application deployment is leveraging an expired license.
Getting Started with Cloudpaging Server and Enterprise Portal 9.8.0
Existing Customers
The latest version of Cloudpaging Server and Enterprise Portal are available in the Numecent Download Portal. All existing customers should read the upgrade guide for full instructions on upgrading from previous versions of Cloudpaging Server or Enterprise Portal to version 9.8.0.
Future Customers
Interested in learning more about Cloudpaging? Subscribe to our newsletter below or contact our team here to discuss how we can maximize application compatibility, performance, security, and cost-savings across physical and virtual Windows desktop environments.
